Italian particleboard manufacturer Xilopan has shuttered production after deciding its panel manufacturing is uncompetitive in the current economic environment, according to Italian news outlets.
Xilopan has been a producer of chipboard panel products since 1969 and is located in the Po Valley near Milan, manufacturing raw and melamine-faced faced panels based on poplar.
Collettiva, an Italian digital news platform dedicated to the world of work and unions, recently reported the closure, saying the closure decision follows 71 workers being on redundancy pay since last November.
The outlet quoted the general secretary of the Italian Federation of Wood, Construction, Related and Extractive Industries Workers as saying the business was closing and employees made permanently redundant, with production costs too high compared to revenues.
Another Italian news outlet Milano Pavia News said the factory owners had communicated to unions that production costs were around double the current market prices for particleboard.
A March 5 deadline had been set for conclusion of negotiations with employees for severance agreement conditions.
Xilopan’s installed capacity is listed as 180,000m3 in WBPI’s particleboard survey statistics.
